


In mysterious ways

by queenofroses12



Series: Whumptober Star Trek [6]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood Loss, Delirium, Frenemies, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Healing, Hurt Spock (Star Trek), Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock Friendship, Mission Gone Wrong, Near Death, Poison, Protective Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Vulcan Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofroses12/pseuds/queenofroses12
Summary: When a regular mission goes badly wrong, McCoy and a wounded Spock are trapped on a primitive planet. And some creature seems to be lurking in the shadows...Whumptober prompt : Bleeding, lost.
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock
Series: Whumptober Star Trek [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982605
Comments: 1
Kudos: 43





	In mysterious ways

Antiocher VII was one of the several pre-industrial humanoid planets. Strictly off limits, other than to trained Starfleet crew – and even for them, approachable only under very unusual circumstances. Unfortunately, one such circumstance had arisen.

  
Orions.

  
Not pirates, just regular businessmen-com-small time smugglers. The kind that were suffered to fly under the radar because they weren’t worth the bother to catch.  
A couple of these worthies had been flying a shuttle full of Drivine gemstones – very much in demand, very beautiful, and very poisonous. The shuttle had chosen an inconvenient location to break down, and convinced that it was about to blow up, the pair had launched themselves off in escape pods, only for the unpiloted shuttle to survive atmospheric reentry and crash on Antiocher.

  
By the time the two idiots had been picked up and interrogated and convinced to reveal the location, there had been several hurried subspace calls made to find the nearest ship. Drivine gemstones’ radioactivity was easily handled once processed, but these were unprocessed – enough to wipe out thousands of the natives. Enterprise had been heading that way, and it was easy enough to make a detour of a day or two and find the remnants of the shuttle and the gemstones.  
Hopefully before the natives got hold of them.

  
An easy enough mission…except the preliminary reports that claimed natives avoided the location was far from accurate. Primitive or not, the people here had had enough smarts to realize something to do with the place was making them sick – and they had, from their point of view, now found the demons who were responsible. Prime Directive prevented their vanishing into thin air, so nothing to do but run for it and hope to get to the designated beamout sites. Communicators didn’t work down here – too much ionic interference.

  
………………………….

  
“Why does this always happen to me?” McCoy panted.

  
“Faster, Doctor.” The Vulcan ordered.

  
McCoy choked back a retort – he simply didn’t have enough breath to waste. And Spock wasn’t even breathing hard. Damn Vulcans. And damn Starfleet for landing us in this mess to begin with. Well, to be fair, Starfleet hadn’t suggested the inclusion of the CMO in the landing party. That had been his own decision – nice, quiet planet, chance to breathe some fresh air…

  
“Some day I’ll learn.”

  
“Doctor, I suggest you refrain from expending energy on unnecessary vocalizations.”

  
If we ever get back to the ship I’ll have the reply for that ready, you… Another arrow whistled past his head. It would have whistled through his head if he hadn’t ducked to avoid a branch from whipping him in the face. The natives were in full pursuit. McCoy didn’t need the universal translator to tell him what exactly those shouts meant. Some things transcend species boundaries.

  
“This way.”

  
This way to what? The beamout site was…Oh, they never would reach there, not at this pace. Their pursuers had the homeground advantage. If Spock has some kind of hiding place planned, great. Otherwise they were both going to end up in the dinnerpot. Probably the hobgoblin would give them food poisoning. McCoy didn’t have even that tiny consolation.

  
“Come on, doctor!”

  
“What d’you think I’m doing, enjoying the scenery?”

  
……………………..

  
“No way!” McCoy froze when he saw what the Vulcan had in mind. “Spock, I can’t climb that!”

  
“You cannot outrun our pursuers either. I see no alternative.”

  
Their way ahead was blocked by a deadfall. One the hobgoblin evidently intended to climb over. Well, maybe he could do it, but not this doctor. Nah, no thanks.

  
“Just follow me, doctor. I believe I know the way through. Place your feet exactly where I place mine, and follow close. Now.”

  
The no argument tone that always made McCoy want to swat that immaculately groomed head.

  
“Spock-“

  
But the sound of pursuit was growing closer. Soon there would be arrows whistling past again, and these wouldn’t miss their mark. Not at this close a range.

  
“I am dead.” McCoy muttered, and began to climb.

  
Spock had, after a brief pause to scan the structure of the tangled trees and bush, begun to climb with easy assurance. No scrambling, no fumbling for a foothold. The guy managed to make this look as easy as climbing a set of stairs.

  
“Hurry, doctor. No, do not look down.”

  
“I’m gonna kill you for this.” McCoy groaned.

  
Of course it was gonna give way, of course one of them – probably him- was going to tumble, there would be the snap of an old branch giving way, a sickening plunge into a hole of jutting, sharpened splinters just waiting to tear into.. Shut up, Len. He had made it almost to the top when they caught up. Another arrow. He felt it pass a centimeter past his face and flinched – a tiny movement, but enough to cost his precarious balance. The next instant he was falling.

  
“Spock!”

  
A slim hand closed around his arm with inhuman strength.

  
“Find a handhold.” Spock’s voice was perfectly steady, as if this was some Academy exercise with nothing worse to dread than a low grade. “There.”

  
Somehow, cursing and groaning, he did manage to find one…but not before a branch nearly impaled him. It was stopped – just – by his belt. The natives were nearly upon them.Two more minutes and they won’t need arrows…

  
“Pull me up!”

  
Can he? His own balance could be none too sure, not on this tangled mess of branches. Of course, he managed. The branch tore out. so did the belt – the one to which his tricorder and medkit were attached. McCoy made one desperate grab for them, but already they were falling out of his reach, into the jumble of dead branches beneath.

  
“Fast. Now.”

  
They were on the top of the pile – McCoy no longer needed to be told not to look down. He couldn’t have, even if his life depended on it. Strangely, the natives were making no effort to climb over the deadfall themselves – surely, they should find it easy as pie…

  
“In another second they’ll be over here, and we’ll be toast. Or soup. Probably.”

  
The arrows were falling around them in a deadly shower now, increasing in number. And they were the perfect targets, outlined against the rising moon, on top of this damned pile of…

  
“Down- Ah!”

  
One of the arrows found its mark.

  
“Spock!”

  
The Vulcan didn’t even lose his balance.

  
“Hurry, doctor.” He managed to gasp out.

  
They did hurry – as much as you can, in the dark, in an alien planet, scrambling over a deadfall with arrows raining down around them. McCoy was never sure just how he managed to get down without breaking a leg. Or his neck, for that matter. All the same, after what seemed an eternity, they were both on firm ground again.

  
Spock sank to his knees, his fingers reaching for the arrow wound. McCoy was instantly at his side. They had to keep going, the natives would be climbing on the other side even now. But if Spock was too badly hurt, if he couldn’t..

  
“Spock, can you-“

  
“We are safe here, doctor.” The first officer’s voice was steady, if a little weak. “They will not pursue.”

  
“You can’t be sure of that!”

  
“This is their sacred ground, doctor.”

  
Oh. That was right. That was mentioned in the briefing. The sacred ground, where only the gods walked.

  
“If they pursue us here, it would be blasphemy, an implication that they do not have faith in their gods’ power to destroy the interlopers.”

  
McCoy breathed easy for a moment.

  
“So all we gotta do is hole up here till Jim manages to get a lock on us.”

  
“Yes.”

  
That was going to be slightly more complicated than normal, considering the planet’s atmosphere which messed with the sensor scans. It’d take a while for the sensors to be recalibrated to filter through the static, so to speak, but not more than a few hours. Even factoring in the time necessary to find a single human or a Vulcan lifesign on a crowded, humanoid populated planet, it shouldn’t take more than one night. They should be back aboard before dawn, at the latest.

  
“Let me see that.”

  
The natives lacked any sort of sophisticated weapons, but arrows could do plenty of damage on their own. This one had embedded itself slightly low on the vulcan’s chest – fortunately not low enough to reach his heart, but it looked like one lung had been affected.

  
“It is poisoned, doctor.”

  
McCoy’s eyes widened in horror.

  
“Are you sure?”

  
“Yes. It seems to be a type of neurotoxic substance..”

  
Vulcans are far more consciously aware of their bodies than humans are. It made Vulcan doctors’ jobs a whole lot easier (and generally frustrated the hell out of certain human doctors), because in many cases the patient himself could diagnose what was happening to him. They just needed to find the cause and how to reverse it. However, in this case, the cause was obvious, and their only hope of reversing it was lost in the tangle of the deadfall. And even that could have done little good, unless the poison turned out to be something familiar – which he doubted.

  
“Okay…” McCoy’s voice was its usual grumpy tone – medical professionals occasionally need Vulcan levels of control themselves. “That makes things a bit complicated.”  
“We will have to wait for the ship to find us.”

  
And communicators didn’t work down here.. Damn it, damn it, damn it. “

  
Yeah, but first got to do some first aid.”

  
He had intended to leave the arrowhead in the wound – uncomfortable, but necessary now that he lacked any instrument to stop the bleeding. But if there was poison on it, that changed things. They’d have to take the risk. Especially if it was a neurotoxin, something that could affect a Vulcan faster than a human.

  
“I’ve got to get this arrow out. Keep very still, okay? Don’t want to tear up anything important.”

  
No medkit. No tricorder, no sterile biobed, none of the paraphernalia of his trade. Only strips torn from his uniform shirt to serve as bandages and steady, skillful hands. It’ll have to be enough. Plus the willpower of one of the most stubborn species in the galaxy.

  
………………………………………………….

  
“It shouldn’t be long now.”

  
“You made that remark eight times already, doctor.”

  
He noted with alarm that Spock’s voice had slurred a little there. They sat leaning against the deadfall, doing the only thing they could. Waiting. How long had it been? Spock would probably know. Damn it, Jim, hurry up! The ground here was damp, swampy. If they went a little further, they’d probably be into swamp proper. A cold mist hovered around the ground, covering everything in white like the world’s lightest snowfall.

  
It was cold. Worse, it was damp. Couldn’t be worse conditions for a wounded Vulcan to be trapped in. McCoy moved a little closer – Spock would hate the proximity, but sharing warmth was more necessary right now, whether he liked it or not. Starting a fire was out of the question – everything was too damp. They were almost touching now. Spock didn’t complain. That alarmed McCoy further. If it was bad enough for Spock to accept help without snarky protests.

  
“Let me check those bandages.”

  
The blood was soaking through them too fast, he’d have to change them again soon. Losing too much blood. Vulcan blood is cold, one of the many things that McCoy finds unnerving about them. Useful, for regulating body temperature on a desert planet, but still, unnerving. More unnerving were the noises he kept hearing amid the trees. Like something big and ugly was moving around…and trying to move around quietly.

“You hear that?” he asked casually –at least, trying to sound casual.

Spock frowned slightly, looking more than a little out of it.

“Hear.. I am afraid my senses are not quite…reliable right now, doctor.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “For a few moments there, I believed Ji- believed the Captain was here..”

Hallucinations. Already. The damn poison worked fast.

“Tell me if you start seeing things again.”

“Why? Nothing you can do…”

“Leave that for me to decide.”

As usual, Spock was right. Nothing he could do. nothing that could be done.

  
The noises never really ceased, but at times they seemed to move away. Then came back again. Like something was prowling through the same path, again and again, circling them. McCoy tried to remember whether there were any large predators around here. Probably. Nothing was mentioned in the briefing, but then, nothing much was known about the planet to begin with. Like most not-yet-ready-for-first-contact planets, this system had been left alone to grow at its own rate. And then of course the blasted Orions and their shuttle had to crash in.

The thing that was mucking about out there could be anything from their equivalent of a moose or that of a le-matya. Well, if it was a predator, it sure was seeing a good chance, McCoy supposed. Spock was slipping in and out of consciousness, and even when conscious, he wasn’t quite aware of where he was or what was happening. More than once he had called McCoy ‘Jim.’

  
The doctor had his phaser in hand, but was very doubtful about his own ability to use it – he had never been all that good a marksman, even at the best of times. If whatever the thing out there was was quick..

  
“Hurry up, Jim” he muttered, not for the first time.

  
Spock’s condition was worsening rapidly. Soon even the resources of the sickbay may not do any good. Pulse weakening. Slowing down. Not enough to be fatal yet, but the downward spiral had begun.

  
“Don’t you dare die on me.” McCoy ordered. “Hear me, Spock? Hold on. I’m not gonna go back and tell Jim that I lost you.”

  
……………………………………..

  
The cold.

  
That was becoming more serious a problem by the moment. Vulcans were evolved on a desert planet, but could control their metabolism well enough to tolerate cold even better than a human could. If they are healthy, that is. Right now, between trying to fight off a neurotoxin and cope with massive bloodloss, Spock’s body simply did not have the strength left to handle the cold as well. McCoy had briefly considered heating some of the rocks with phaser fire. But no. Not with that creature, whatever it was, still prowling out there. The light of the glowing rocks could well attract it to them.

  
“I know you’re gonna hate this, but desperate times, desperate measures.”he grumbled as he put his arms around the Vulcan, cradling the motionless form close to his own body.

  
Body heat was more efficient than fire heat at times, when dealing with hypothermia. He only hoped his brand of illogical thought didn’t disturb the touch telepath. Spock murmured something indistinctly, but did not wake up.

  
………………………………

  
They were being watched.

  
McCoy had been considering the possibility for some time, and now he was sure. He could feel the eyes on him, eyes watching from between the trees. Something more intelligent than a prey animal. Something that was big enough and dangerous enough to…

  
You can’t know that, Len. You’re just thinking about the so called monster in the shadows so that you don’t have to think about what is happening to your patient.  
Nothing that can be done. No way to help him. Even if the natives had left the other side of the deadfall (which they hadn’t – he could still hear them from time to time), he would never have stood a chance of recovering the medkit from beneath the tangled branches. A witchdoctor, he thought bitterly. Spock was right about that too, then. A witchdoctor who has forgotten all his spells.

  
The Vulcan’s face had taken on a deathly pallor. His eyes moved restlessly beneath the purplish lids, lost in delirious dreams.

  
“It’s gonna be alright” McCoy tried to soothe, knowing that Spock could no longer hear him. The toxin had taken too strong a hold. “You don’t think Jim’ll let us down d’you? Let you down? He’ll find us.”

  
At times, in his delirium, Spock seemed to be under the impression that he was back aboard. It was difficult to pick out the murmured words, mixed Standard and Vulcan, but McCoy had caught Jim’s name several times. Did he think they were back aboard and safe? Was he calling his friend for help…Or trying to say goodbye?

  
…………………………

  
It was nearly over. McCoy knew that. When you’ve been a doctor for almost two decades, you don’t need a tricorder to tell you of death’s approach. He held Spock’s limp hand in his, feeling the slowing pulse. A healthy Vulcan heart beat so fast that you couldn’t actually pick out the beats, only feel it as a sort of vibration beneath your fingers. Now..

  
“Doctor…”

  
Spock’s voice was almost too weak for him to hear. He had to lean closer. The vulcan’s eyes opened. Clear and free of delirium. McCoy knew better than to feel hope at this apparent improvement. Dying people often rallied a bit right before the end. That was one of those things everyone noticed, but none could explain, yet. Probably the body was finally giving up the fight and letting the last few resources be burned up to give the mind a moment or two more.

  
”I’m here, Spock.”

  
He could feel tears blurring his sight. Damn it, it isn’t supposed to end like this. People like Spock aren’t supposed to die like this. So damn purposeless. Killed by those they were trying to save, killed by people who genuinely believed they were their enemies.

  
“Doctor..will..will you…”

  
Will I what? Save you? Help you?

  
“Jim.. Tell..Tell Jim..convince him..not his fault. He..He’ll blame himself…you know..”

  
“I will.”

  
Tell him, yes. Convince him? I can’t do that even when the death is that of some crewman he has met less than half a dozen times. When it’s you…

  
“But try and make sure I won’t need to, Spock. Hold on. Just a little while longer. They’ll find us anytime now.”

  
His voice broke on the last syllable. Damn it. I’m sorry, Spock. I..I should have.. Some of that must have gotten through the touch telepathy or whatever it was. Spock managed to focus on him once more.

  
“ Leonard…you..you did everything you could..”

  
Everything I could. Damn nothing, that’s what I did. Except lose the medkit that could’ve saved your life. Except slow you down back there. you could have made it to the beamout site, alone. You could’ve been over that deadfall long before they caught up.

  
The dying Vulcan’s gaze wandered upwards, towards the stars.

  
“It’s…beautiful” he murmured. “Jim..”

  
He was looking at the stars when he died. McCoy felt it happen, felt the death shudder go through the body in his arms. Saw the open eyes glaze over, as some light in their dark depths went out.

  
………………………………….

  
The creature was coming.

  
There was no doubt about it this time. It was coming closer and closer, moving with intelligent purpose, and not caring who heard it. Moving in for the kill. McCoy held onto the phaser with one hand. Not sure it would do any good. Not sure whether he really cared much, either way. Right now, ending up as dinner to some sort of swamp creature was looking like an attractive prospect, compared to seeing the look of mingled grief and horror on Jim’s face when he beamed up with Spock’s dead body.  
He clutched Spock’s body closer to him, though. He wasn’t going to let him become dinner instead, dead or not. The Vulcan deserved better. He kept his eyes fixed on the copse of trees. The creature was just behind them…

  
“What?”

  
Some surprise filtered through, past his grief and pain. What emerged was no animal. In fact, it looked more like a moving cloud than anything else, albeit one with enough mass to snap all those branches he heard snapping.

  
Sacred ground. Their gods.

  
It moved closer, with a strange floating motion. McCoy realized, more via sheer intuition than anything else, that it was afraid, too. Just as, or even more, afraid as he was. That was why it had delayed so long. It wasn’t prowling. It was trying to work its nerve up, to approach these strangers. It moved closer, hovering. McCoy lowered his phaser slowly.  
The creature..spirit..god..whatever..hovered close to Spock. It seemed to sort of swirl in place. The Vulcan suddenly drew a sharp breath, gasping, as if a defibrillator had been applied. Or five ccs of cordrazine. McCoy was too shocked to move, to do more than watch what was happening, and try to wrap his mind around it.

  
“Spock!”

  
His eyes were still closed, but as the doctor watched, his breathing steadied. So did his pulse. Slower than should be, but steady.

  
“What..what did you-“

  
The cloud creature was moving away. It paused a moment. Seemed to be looking right at him. The impression it seemed to convey was gratitude. And regret for not having had the courage to intervene earlier. It had been waiting, hoping it won’t have to come near, won’t have to risk itself, that their friends from the sky would find them in time..But they hadn’t, and it couldn’t let one who saved its people die by their hand….

  
McCoy was never able to explain how it got all that across to him without using a word, but he was sure that was what was said, as sure as he was of his own name.

  
…………………..

  
“It knew.” McCoy insisted, in the sickbay several hours later. “Maybe it didn’t know what the gemstones were, but it knew we were trying to help.”

  
“Telepathic, perhaps.” Spock commented. The Vulcan had not recovered completely yet, but he was awake and alert, little the worse for wear for his brief encounter with mortality.

  
“You don’t remember anything that happened, you know, after..”

  
“I do not recollect anything clearly, after getting past the deadfall.”

  
“Just as well” Jim declared. “No one should have to remember dying.”

  
McCoy noted that the captain was holding Spock’s hand in his (and the Vulcan seemed to have no objection, this time…), and permitted himself a smile. Spirit or god or whatever the thing was, he owed it for this. For them. Not all gods were insane, even out here.

**Author's Note:**

> * The part about Vulcan blood being cold is taken from one of McCoy's own comments in the first season. "That green ice water you call blood" - if Vulcans have lower than human body temperatures, would make sense that their blood feels cold - acts as some sort of internal coolant to protect organs from the desert heat. So Spock is literally cold blooded...another eerie cool thing about Vulcans.
> 
> * As seen in 'All Our Yesterdays', despite being from a desert planet, Spock handles the freezing cold better than McCoy. Of course, deserts do have cold nights, but still, it seemed Mary Sueish to have Vulcans resistant to both extremes of temperature. Better explanation would be the Vulcan mind-over-matter powers. After all, if someone can self repair a gunshot wound in a matter of hours, he should be able to handle some temperature problems... However, this time not only is Spock hurt, he's also got a neurotoxin messing with his body. So no mind voodoo defense against the cold.


End file.
